Carmen was the first movie I ever made, back in 1985 when I was a film student at UCLA. It is a silent comedy, shot and edited to music. I think of it as my little burlesque on the Bizet opera. Between 1983 and 1984, there were three film versions of Carmen that came out, by Francesco Rosi, Carlos Saura and Jean-Luc Godard. So I thought: "Fuck it, I'm going to make the definitive Carmen; the American Carmen." In my version the character of Don José is a retarded gas station attendant and the heroine uses her sexuality to get free gas and candy.

Carmen is what it is - a film by someone who knew absolutely nothing about film-making. The whole thing was conceived, directed and edited in eight weeks. We shot in the desert about three hours' drive from LA where it snowed for the first time in something like 20 years. I don't know if that was a good omen or not. At the end, I put my name on the credits: "Music written and performed by Alexander Payne." But that was just a joke.

I'm not pretending this is a great work of art, because it's very primitive. I would never have said: "Hey, let's put Carmen out on DVD." But when this group, Cinema 16, asked to include it on a short film collection, I thought, "Sure, why not?" and agreed to oversee the restoration. And you know what? I thought it was still pretty funny. I like the tumbleweed that blows across the screen at the end. It shows the degree I was influenced by silent comedy. I grew up watching the big three comics - Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, and I'd still like to shoot a feature-length silent comedy one day.

Another thing that occurred was that my basic process of film-making has really not changed since then. The modus operandi I used on Carmen has stayed with me. When you're making a big feature you find yourself looking around at all the trucks and trailers and walkie-talkies and thinking, "Do you really need this many people to make a movie?" and you don't. So I still scout my own locations, drive around the neighbourhood and knock on doors. On set it's just me, the camera and the actors. I try to keep the process intimate, just like it was on Carmen.

· Alexander Payne was talking to Xan Brooks. Cinema 16: American Short Films is out now